Ahmed Shafik accuses the Muslim Brotherhood of attempted character assassination ahead of the presidential poll, writes Gamal Essam El-Din Presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik, who served as ousted president Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister, accused the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) of using their majority in the People's Assembly to launch a smear campaign against him. Shafik criticised parliamentary speaker Saad El-Katatni for allowing Essam Sultan, deputy chairman of the centrist Islamist party Wassat, to use the assembly to make accusations of corruption. "If Sultan has anything against me why doesn't he go directly to the prosecutor-general's office rather than use the parliament floor to defame me in public?" asked Shafik. "It has become clear that parliament is being used to tarnish my reputation ahead of presidential elections." Sultan launched his attack on Shafik a day after the Higher Administrative Court endorsed the Presidential Elections Commission's (PEC) decision to refer legal amendments, sponsored by Sultan, which would have prevented members of Mubarak's inner circle from contesting presidential elections, to the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC). The disenfranchisement law submitted by Sultan had faced criticism from legal experts and government officials who questioned its constitutionality. Shafik denies all allegations of corruption. "What Sultan has alleged about my relationship with Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal, is entirely without foundation," said Shafik. "I never exploited my position in the early 1990s as chairman of the Air Pilots' Society to sell plots of land in Ismailia to Alaa and Gamal Mubarak at reduced prices." In a complaint filed with the prosecutor-general on 12 May Sultan alleged that Shafik sold 40,000 square metres overlooking the Al-Murra Lakes to Alaa and Gamal Mubarak at 75 piastres a metre when the going rate was more than 10 times that amount. Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud has ordered the Public Assets Prosecution to investigate Sultan's complaint. In the meantime, Shafik responded in a press conference on 14 May, saying that the land acquired by Mubarak's two sons and other 70 people was sold in 1985, seven years before he became head of the Air Pilots' Society. "After I became chairman of the Society in 1992 my only connection to the deal was to document the sale to Mubarak's two sons and others," said Shafik. "Mubarak's two sons bought the land in 1985 but only registered their ownership in 1993, a year after I became chairman of the Society. In that capacity my signature appears on the registration documents filed with the public notary." Shafik went on to accuse Sultan of acting as an agent of Mubarak's feared State Security Apparatus. "Sultan was an agent whose job was to spy on Mohamed El-Baradei, ex-chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and attempt to drive a wedge between him and the Muslim Brotherhood," alleged Shafik. "He was also employed to make accusations against the Muslim Brotherhood's deputy supreme guide, business tycoon Khairat El-Shater. Sultan accused El-Shater of laundering money and recruiting members of student militias." To back up his allegations Shafik showed journalists documents containing the initials of the police officers he says recruited Sultan to work for the State Security Apparatus. The series of allegations and counter allegations intensified on Monday when Mohamed El-Beltagui, a senior FJP official, accused a number of businessmen and former state security officers loyal to the Mubarak regime of supporting Shafik. "It would be impossible for Shafik to win the election in the absence of electoral fraud," said El-Beltagui. On Tuesday FJP MPs accused provincial governors and senior police officers of pressurising citizens to vote for Shafik. Ibrahim Abu Ouf, FJP MP and chairman of parliament's Education Committee, alleged that the governor of a Nile Delta governorate had recently held a meeting with leaders of Shafik's presidential campaign to discuss ways of forcing citizens to vote for him. Amr Moussa, who for a decade served as Mubarak's foreign minister, has also been the subject of MPs' criticism. Independent assembly member Mohamed El-Omda alleged that during a recent visit to Cairo US Senator John Kerry attended a public rally for Moussa, and that his presence represented intervention in Egypt's domestic affairs. El-Omda also blasted recent statements by Kerry, in his capacity as chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggesting that future aid could be conditioned on Cairo respecting its peace treaty with Israel. MPs from the Wafd Party, which has endorsed Moussa's candidacy in the presidential race, objected to the way the assembly was being hi-jacked to smear candidates. "If FJP MPs have any real complaints against candidates they should go to the Presidential Elections Commission and report them," said Wafdist MP Sameh Makram Ebeid. "Instead, they seem determined to use the People's Assembly to defame those who are competing with the FJP's own presidential nominee." A recent poll conducted by the Information and Decision Support Centre showed Shafik's approval rating shooting up by 12 per cent last month, suggesting that the concerted campaign of character assassination was backfiring.
